The ex-Smiths star has recently battled bouts of ill health but revealed the cancer news during an email interview with Spanish newspaper El Mundo.

"I have had four cancer-scrapings, but so what. If I die, I die," he wrote. "If I don't, then I don't. As I sit here today I feel very well."

The singer started his latest European tour in Lisbon, Portugal, on Monday.

In the exchange with journalist Javier Blanquez, he wrote: "I know I look quite bad on recent photographs, but I am afraid this is what illness does to the overall countenance. I will save relaxation for when I'm dead."

There has been no further elaboration, but there is one oddity about this announcement.

Seasoned Morrissey watchers will know that the great man's main channel of communication is via True To You; but on that site, the news page hasn't been updated since September 25th, and then with a piece about an online shop, and DVD chart positions. It's a bit like the Vatican Bollettino not bothering to run a piece that day the Pope resigned.